Madam had finally gotten off work. The clocks read five p.m, but the sky still shone brightly - the sun stopped setting a long time ago.

She trotted along roads crowded not with people, but buildings. There's a small lurch in the ground.

She's not phased. No one is anymore. Another bundle of wires pop up, growing at a rapid rate. The street behind her disappears soon after. Consumed.

"Tomorrow I'll have to walk the other way. That means it'll take five minutes longer to get to work...." she mumbles to no one.

Maybe in another world, the constantly growing structures would be a noteworthy, but here... nothing was. Everything was normalized. Fears crushed. The great unknowns of the world could rise up, and after a small bit of panic, acceptance would spread across the population.....

"Road is blocked. Take the left." Madam chirped to a fellow worker of Zoo Corp heading the other way. Soon that worker chirped to another, and that one to another. The talk on the street became all about the traffic situation. Cekeki towers gazed down at the flock of workers. Forgotten.

Madam entered her apartment.

"It just ain't right," she said, as she sluggishly entered. The comment was for no one. In a sense it absentmindedly became the way she greeted her husband, and also his work friend.

Said friend became peeved at the comment today. "What do you mean it just ain't right?"

"Work is good, Madam. Work's never been better!" states the Ray of Zoo Corp, while eating his cigarettes.

Scab shakes the now empty box of cigarettes in his hand, rolling it around idly between his fingers. He sits up a little more as Madam steps in, paying no mind to Ray's grilling.
"Did something happen today?"

"Boss, now I ain't saying that's a useless question, but everyday you two say that exact same thing!"

""It just ain't right." "Did anything happen today?" "Just the usual." "What's the usual?" "The usual,"" he mimics in a mocking tone.

"We got food. We got water. We got a nice flat, and you (not me!) got a......." The Ray of sunshine looks at Madam judgingly. "six outta ten wife."

"But everyday, boss. You and her are worried about nothing."

"I'm not worried about nothing. I'm worried about her."

"Understood, boss. You're worried about her. And she's worried about nothing. Your wife is just tired, she always is. How about you and me, boss, we go outside for drinks for a few hours?"

"Your wife, she will be fine then."

"Plus boss, that pink bimbo from work is going to be there you know?"

"I do not think he'd be interested in you."

"He?"

"GLORB-PA-PHASH! We'll go to another bar. I know a better one!"

"I don't know if it's very polite to say that."

"Glorb-pa-phash? What, so I say a rude phrase and suddenly you perk back up."

He can only scowl at Ray who, for the most part, he had gotten used to.
"You really need to learn when to shut your trap, Ray."

He stands up, making his way over to Madam. He rests a hand on her side, pressing his brow against hers before whispering.
"Want me to get him out of here for tonight? I'll make sure he gets a hotel somewhere so we don't gotta suffer any more monologues."

"How many times are you going to throw your best man out of your house, boss? I cook. I clean. I do everything for you boss and you treat me like this. Hmmp!"

"As many times as I have to until you can behave around a woman? You're hardly this bad when it's just us."

"Boss! If I was a little stupid Pa-Phash I'd say I'm more married to you than she is!"

"She's like a trophy wife but without any of the rewards, boss."

"I'm a man of high standing in Zoo Corp. We go around the bars. We talk to some ladies. We can get you a nicer wife in no time, boss."

"No one would date you, Ray."

"They would. They have. They still do."

"I just don't bring them back to the house cause I would never ruin the boss's carpets with what I do."

"You're the worst, Ray. Go wait outside so I can actually say hello to my wife. I'll be out in a minute."

Ray spits out of a puff of smoke in anger. "Fine! Maybe I'll find myself a nice woman outside. Because there's nothing but a miserable bitch in here." His whole body slithers out of the door. He wraps his tail around the doorknob, slamming it on his way out.

Keys jingle from outside of the door as Ray opens it. "The bitch is your wife. Not you."

"Be out for drinks in twenty minutes. Boss." Ray re-closes the door.

Scab smooths his fur back along his head, brushing his whiskers with a long drawn-out sigh.
"I'd smother that man with a pillow if it wouldn't burn up in my hands."

"Are you okay, honey?"

"He's right on some levels."

"Not about me. But about everything else. Why can't I just be happy?"

"We have everything we need...right?"

"Uh, yeah..."
He takes a moment to gather his thoughts, offering a couple pats to her shoulder.

"But there's more than just what we need. It's what we want, too."

"Maybe we should start thinking about that?"

"Like, for example. I want Ray to get his own place. That'd make us happier, right?"
He gives her a small nudge, cracking a smile at the idea.

She tries to give a smile, but it's fake, and as soon as she realizes that she loses it. "I want to say that would make me happy, but he's so normal at this point, I don't know if I even care."

"When he talks it feels all...muted. Everything feels muted. The only thing that ever makes me feel anything any more....is you."

"And even that I worry would fade in the sun as well."

"Maybe I don't have the correct outlook on life anymore. Maybe going to a bar would be fun, but every time I come back from work I just want to curl up and watch TV. I'm just so tired."

Scab rubs the back of his head, looking towards the door. He huffs gently.
"And you know I'd love nothing more than to be curled up with you. Frankly, honey, if he didn't have keys to the place I'd lock that door and we could just call it a day."

"It's complicated. Between work and... him, we don't really have the time to relax."

"Er, tell you what! I'll make sure it's just us tonight. I'll bring you back something nice, we can sit and watch TV or just. Talk for a while."

He looks up at the ceiling, as if trying to remember lines he has rehearsed.
"Thank you for telling me how you're feeling. I love you, Madam. I really do. Let's talk tonight about what we can do to... make things brighter. Okay?"

"I suppose that would be nice....." She appreciates her husband. She wishes she had energy like him to not give up.

"Yes. Thank you. Please enjoy your time out, and when you get home we can watch a movie. That would be nice..."

But she can't stop thinking about the days when she used to rush out of work, so she could spend hours preparing for the rest of the day out in the streets, partying into the night.

Ray was usually wrong.

But he was right, about this one thing.

There's a thrashing sound outside the door. "Stay safe out there. Don't let Ray bite you."

"He wouldn't dare."

Scab rests his hand underneath her chin, tilting her head up to press his muzzle against her cheek, a faux kiss.

He makes towards the door, resting his hand on the knob before turning back to her.

"Take it easy, okay?"

"Don't worry. I don't have the energy to take it any other way," she says with a short laugh.

As Scab exits the apartment and heads down the halls, Ray comes into sight. His hand holds down a struggling cekeki, too large to not be intelligent.

This was the mess he didn't want to take home.

A piece of its hide was ripped off and in his mouth. The cekeki, unable to pull away, could only click in fear as it struggled.

"Really, man? Just out in the hallway?"
Scab turns his head to look away. Just because he knows what goes down doesn't mean he wants to see it. Nor is he moving to stop it.

"Like, you couldn't have waited until we were out of the apartment? You don't shit where you sleep."

Ray tugs on the ribs of the cekeki until there's a sickening sound of snapping. It doesn't take Ray long to consume that chunk of the poor victim. "Didn't want to kill her."

"She was walking my way you know, boss? She gave me this nice smile. Said "good evening." She didn't even know me, and she's wishing me a good evening?"

"Now that's a nice lady. Good looking too. So I thought, I'd chat with her. My body is long, boss, so it's easy to accidently block the path."

He just looks out of the corner of his eye at the cekeki on the ground, pinned underneath Ray. He flinches at the rib snapping, baring his blocky teeth as he takes in a sharp breath.
"Whatever man, whatever you say."

"I didn't mean for it to go this way. You understand? This was an accident. Once I bit into her, what was I going to do? Let her go? Let her call for help?"

"We'll get a new neighbor. Just like we got one last time."

"Are you finished?"

"Don't look at me like that boss. If you were me, you would have done the same." The Ray knocks back his head as he grotesquely swallows the rest of it in one gulp. "What kind of lovely idiot sees a cekeki this big in her path and brings attention to herself like that?"

"Wouldn't have even noticed a thing like her if she didn't speak." Ray says it with a shrug and a smile.

"If you're worried, don't be, boss. You always get home before me, and your wife after me. It's like one of those wolf and river puzzles. Unless you stop coming home, there ain't any time for me to even think of eating your wife."

"Plus. I'd never eat the wife of my boss, or my friend. Else I would have done it ages ago. Like you say, boss. Don't shit where you sleep."

He holds up a poster in his hand, though parts of it are covered in paint-like cekeki blood.

"Adult magic show. You think there would be any stunners there? I know it ain't the usual place to pick up chicks, but maybe that'd make it more special, yeah?"

He shook his head in disbelief, blinking a couple times to regather his focus.

Scab shrugs, walking over to inspect the poster now that Ray's finished his meal. He lifts his snout, as if trying to keep it away from the stench of cekeki blood.

"Guess we'll find out. I'm sure you'll find some tail to chase down."

"If we're lucky, we'll get you a bite that's better than your wife too."

"Shut it, Ray. I'm not half the animal you are."

He looks Ray up and down, at the length of his tail coiled and sprawling through the hallway. Over the past decade he'd only gotten bigger and bigger, prompting Scab to ask.
"Are you getting close...? Can you even tell?"

"I ain't know when I'm going to reach godhood, boss. Maybe I'm happy to be in the position I'm in."

"But, if you're so excited to see me reach my zenith I know what you can feed me."

"You already ate the last of my cigs, man." He knows what Ray meant, but he wasn't going to entertain the idea. Not even with a 'Fuck you.'

Scab gave the large cekeki a couple firm pats on the shoulder as he carefully stepped over the pooled blood on the ground, making his way towards the exit. "C'mon big guy, you can buy me a new pack while we're out."

The lighter nearly slips out of Madam's hand as she tries to light her cigarette. She blesses herself silently. The paint, once slowly leaking out of her never-healing wounds, had increased its flow.

Those at work have noticed. A lot of cekekis have been "melting" like her. She knew she was doomed to become like the living towers....and yet she felt hopeless to stop it.

She wished she could offer her husband the mercy of at least wandering out. Getting lost. "Vanishing."

But work had made her too tired for even that.